Remember about 10 months ago when I posted about that cute little 4 week old baby? Well in less than a month, she will be ONE YEAR OLD! Sweet Moses! In an effort to hold on to her tininess (although, she’s not so tiny in these pictures), we did a mini-shoot at the Reston Town Center. Mina has SO MUCH personality! She is such a little firecracker 🙂 She definitely lets you know what is on her mind in any way that she can. And as cranky as she can be, she is 10 times happier. She loves, loves to laugh and smile. And she watches everything, taking it all in. She started army crawling at 8 months, crawling full time at 8.5 months, and now at 11 months is getting ready to walk.

Enough talk, here’s the cute kid:

She loves playing with my camera strap:

Toesies!

You can’t tell in this picture, but she has 5 teeth and seems to be working on 18 more…….. I hate teething.

Little baby, big world.

Awww…

Seriously. Even though she is up at all times of the night, this smile during the day makes me forget how exhausted I am!

Ok, those eyes make me forget too.

I love you with all my heart, Mina Star. I cannot imagine life without you, you are such a shining joy in our lives 🙂

Aww, I really liked this family! Just looking back through these pictures makes me smile again 🙂 Colin answered the door before I could even knock on it, and I was immediately introduced to his special Polar Bear given to him by his aunt.

We went outside and braved the gnats for a few pictures. Colin didn’t last long, but it’s ok, because neither did I 🙂

Admiring the new babe, Megan.Well hello there, Bright Eyes!

Special Daddy/Daughter moments.. .*tear*

Colin was told if he cooperated with the photo shoot that there would be some Chuggington trains waiting for him at the end. He was perfect and kissed and smiled like he owned the place. His patience with my clicking was rewarded 🙂

Fun family play time,

Thanks for letting me hang out with your family for a bit, Wolf Family! It’s always fun getting to peak into the lives of other people. Your kids are adorable and I can’t wait to see them grow up!

Erin contacted me a while ago for some engagement pictures for her and her fiance, Marcus. When we were finally able to settle on a date, I was so looking forward to shooting in Old Town Alexandria with that yummy, golden light, and THEN… it was cloudy and misty. Good times. Thankfully, it stopped misting and raining, Erin claimed the night to have turned out “kind of nice”, so on we went! And she was right, there is something nice about cloudy days, it casts a nice, soft white box and makes things look a little more even.
I loved hanging out with Marcus and Erin, they are so adorably cute together and were such agreeable, kind, good-looking people! Of course, they didn’t mind kissing it up in front of the camera, so that didn’t hurt either 🙂

Funny story about this bench. We were walking along the sidewalk and I thought it would be a nice place to take pictures, but the owner was out front taking out the trash. So I whispered that I was going to wait till she was gone so we could take a picture on the bench. Marcus said, “Do you want me to ask her?” Uhh… sure? I hadn’t even thought of asking, ha! He was one of the kindest people, and asked if she needed help with her trash before he asked about taking pictures. Of course she obliged to the picture taking, and we got a nice picture on the bench 🙂 Seriously, Marcus, people just aren’t as nice as you are in this area! Please spread that kindness around!

This is one of my favorites, I had no problem getting them to kiss one another 🙂

People walking by on the sidewalk were like, “what are they doing? Why is she taking their picture?”

🙂

Another favorite, they are so at ease with each other, it’s cute when he makes her laugh,

We ducked inside this kitschy little shop for some pictures. We asked one of the ladies working there if it was alright to take pictures, she said it was. Then we went upstairs to take a few more and were told by some guy to not take pictures. Anyway.. We got a few good ones before then!

Erin and Marcus, it was SUCH a pleasure to meet the two of you! Thanks for letting me be a part of your lives for a short time, I hope to run into you all again sometime soon!

I have known Cathy since my senior year in college. She was my adviser for my internship in Social Work. The place I interned at was the Adoption Center of Washington, families could adopt children from Vietnam, China, and Russia (while I was there, things have since changed in some countries). Cathy took such good care of me, and always made sure I was learning. It was a great experience being able to work with her.

She contacted me a while ago about doing some pictures of her and her son, Sean. So we were finally able to meet up at Frying Pan Farm, but sadly the area I wanted to take pictures in was closed… But we found a cool fence, some cows and pigs, and made do 🙂
Cathy’s son, Sean, I hadn’t seen since he was probably 10, and now he’s like 28 and 15 feet tall. He is such a wonderful young man! He was so nice, went with the flow, and seemed to really enjoy himself! I realized going into this session that I have never taken pictures of teen boys. I take pictures of little kids all the time and know tricks on how to get them to laugh or look at the camera, but had no idea what to do with a teenage boy! But Sean was great, I need to take him along with me on photo sessions, he was so much fun!
Sean wanted a picture with the cows, here ya go buddy 🙂

Seriously, he could not be any sweeter,

We did run into some GIANORMOUS pigs along the way! I never knew how loud pigs were…

Man, I love me some red barns!

And jumping shots are a must, obviously:

And of course, we had to include the sweet dog 🙂

Cathy and Sean it was so fun to see you again! I can’t believe it’s been this long, hope to see you again sometime soon 🙂